¶9 But let us now set aside all anticipations, since it is the present state of things that must especially occupy us, and let us return for a moment to the ideas of restoring a ‘Western tradition’, such as we can observe around us. A single observation would suffice to show that these ideas are not ‘in order’, if one may express oneself thus: it is that they are almost always conceived in a spirit of more or less avowed hostility towards the East.1 Even those who would like to rely on Christianity are sometimes, it must be said, animated by this spirit; they seem to seek above all to discover oppositions which, in reality, are perfectly non-existent; and thus it is that we have heard expressed the absurd opinion that, if the same things are found both in Christianity and in the Eastern doctrines, and expressed on both sides in an almost identical form, they nevertheless do not have the same meaning in the two cases, that they even have a contrary meaning!2 Those who make such assertions prove thereby that, whatever their pretensions, they have not gone very far in the understanding of traditional doctrines, since they have not glimpsed the fundamental identity hidden beneath all the differences of external forms, and that, even where this identity becomes quite apparent, they obstinately persist in failing to recognise it.3 Consequently, such persons envisage Christianity itself in a quite external fashion, which cannot correspond to the notion of a true traditional doctrine offering in every order a complete synthesis; it is the principle that they lack,4 in which they are affected, much more than they can think, by that modern spirit against which they yet wish to react; and, when they happen to use the word ‘tradition’, they certainly do not take it in the same sense as we do.5
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intellectapauruṣeya

Summary

Guénon sets aside anticipations to return to the idea of restoring a ‘Western tradition’. A single observation shows these ideas are not ‘in order’: they are almost always conceived in a spirit of hostility towards the East, even among those who wish to rely on Christianity. He cites the absurd opinion that the same things expressed in almost identical form in Christianity and Eastern doctrines would have contrary meanings. Such assertions prove that their authors have not understood the fundamental identity hidden beneath external forms. These people envisage Christianity externally, lack the principle, and are affected by the modern spirit they claim to oppose. When they use the word ‘tradition’, they do not mean it in the same sense as Guénon.

General notes

  1. un esprit d’hostilité plus ou moins avouée vis-à-vis de l’Orient — Rendered as ‘a spirit of more or less avowed hostility towards the East’. Here Guénon denounces a frequent tendency among pseudo-traditionalist Westerners: instead of recognising in the living Eastern doctrines the deposit of the sophia perennis, they reject them out of nationalism, out of ‘defence of Christian Europe’ or out of mere romantic prejudice. This hostility can be explicit (criticism of ‘Eastern influences’) or implicit (the desire to construct a ‘pure Western tradition’ without borrowing from India, China or Islam). Guénon shows that this attitude is absurd, because any authentic tradition is universal; to deny the East is to deny one’s own metaphysical root. ↩︎
  2. une signification contraire — Rendered as ‘a contrary meaning’. Guénon here targets authors such as René de La Tour du Pin, Charles Péguy (in his polemics against ‘Hindu mysticism’) or certain Neo-scholastics who claimed that identical symbols (for example, the svastika, the cross, the linga, the axis mundi) would have a ‘pagan’ meaning in the East and a ‘Christian’ meaning in the West. For Guénon, this opinion rests on an ignorance of the transcendental unity of traditions; if the external form is identical, the inner meaning cannot but be the same, because the symbol is universal. To claim the opposite is to fall into an ‘exclusivist exotericism’ that ignores esotericism. ↩︎
  3. l’identité fondamentale qui se dissimule sous toutes les différences de formes extérieures — Rendered as ‘the fundamental identity hidden beneath all the differences of external forms’. Guénon here sets forth a key principle of his metaphysics: the transcendental unity of orthodox religions (sophia perennis). The differences between Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, etc., traditions are purely ‘formal’ (exoteric) and relate to adaptation to particular mentalities. The ‘fundamental identity’ concerns the metaphysical foundation (doctrine of the Supreme Being, manifestation, deliverance) and esoteric symbolism. He who has attained pure intellection transcends forms and recognises this identity; he who remains a prisoner of forms (exotericism) sees oppositions where there are only variations of language. ↩︎
  4. le principe qui leur manque — Rendered as ‘it is the principle that they lack’. This is the supreme metaphysical principle, identified with Brahman in Hinduism, with pure Being in Plato and Plotinus, with the Tao in Taoism, with Para in esoteric Islam. For lack of having accessed this principle through direct intellection, these pseudo-traditionalists reason at a purely exoteric or rational level; they may accumulate erudite knowledge of forms, but they do not possess the ‘key’ that reveals their profound unity. Guénon often compares them to ‘armchair Orientalists’ who describe symbols without ever experiencing their reality. ↩︎
  5. ils ne le prennent certainement pas dans le même sens que nous — Rendered as ‘they certainly do not take it in the same sense as we do’. For Guénon, ‘tradition’ is not a mere collection of ancient beliefs, popular customs or archaeological data; it is a ‘descent’ (traditio) of timeless metaphysical principles through an unbroken initiatic chain. The modern or pseudo-traditionalist sense of the word ‘tradition’ is often sentimental, nationalist or folkloric: one ‘loves’ tradition as one loves heritage. For Guénon, tradition is above all a living spiritual reality, which cannot be ‘loved’ from outside but must be ‘lived’ from within through initiation and conformity to the Principle. This is why he repeats that these adversaries ‘do not take the word in the same sense’: they speak of a dead tradition (fossil) whereas he speaks of a living tradition (organism). ↩︎